You may need to submit multiple academic reports during your degree. Our Tutors here at Assignmentgiant.com are ready to guide you through the general features of an academic report. There are probably just a few of these elements that will be necessary for your course, and you also have other criteria that aren’t covered here. The criteria for reports might differ from one department to another, therefore if you are unclear of what you need to include in your report, you can consult your course handbook or contact your subject tutor or lecturer.
Key parts of an academic report
An academic report is different from an essay in many ways. There is no one best way to organize a report; rather, the format should be tailored to the report’s intended use. However, in most cases, academic papers include some of the components that are listed below.
Key parts of academic report includes
1. Title page
On this page, the most important details of your academic report are listed.
2. Declaration Statement
This is a document that has to be signed, and it needs to be included with any written report or essay that you submit in order to prove that the project is all your own work. These forms are available for pick-up at the office of your faculty department.
3. Abstract or Executive Summary
An abstract is a concise summary of the whole academic report, often no more than 150 words long. It should be written after everything else. In contrast to a conclusion, an abstract is required to provide a concise summary of all of the phases of the report, not simply the findings or conclusions. When writing an abstract, one of your goals should be to provide prospective readers with just enough information to let them decide whether or not they need to read the whole report.
If you’ve never written an abstract before, one strategy you may try is to write one or two phrases that summarize each component of your academic report. This is very helpful for those who are just starting out. Take a look at the abstracts or executive summaries included in the reports that may be found in the Library or on the internet to get a sense of the writing style that is employed.
4. Acknowledgements
There is a separate page dedicated to expressing gratitude to those individuals who have helped in any way with the assignment. In most cases, only the more substantial academic report will require an acknowledgments page.
5. Table of Contents
This should specify clearly all of the parts and subsections that make up your report, as well as the page numbers that correspond to the beginning of each of those sections. Using heads that are numbered in ascending order is a typical practice for structuring reports; however, this method is not required.
For example:
Following the Table of Contents is a separate list of any tables, charts, or diagrams that you have included in the academic report. This list follows after the conclusion of the report. The names of the tables should be “Table 1 [with the title],” “Table 2,” and so on in a sequential fashion. The names of charts and diagrams should be written out as “Figure 1 [with the title],” “Figure 2,” and so on. The page number of each table and chart should be included on this distinct list.
6. Introduction
You should explain why the report is required and/or valuable, as well as outline the goal (aim) of the report in the opening section of the paper. Depending on what you want to accomplish with the report, you can decide to subdivide the overarching goal into several smaller goals. You should also clarify important phrases (words) that you use in the academic report so that the reader understands exactly what you mean when you use those terms. This will ensure that the report is as clear as possible.
Only in papers on primary (your own) research, such as an experiment, survey, or observation, will the following four parts typically be included. If the only source of information for your report is reading, you will most likely replace these four parts with a number of subject headers that you have selected yourself.
7. Literature review
In this area, you will discuss prior and present ways of thinking about the issue, as well as research that has been done on it. To put it another way, your academic report will consist of a summary of what other people have written about the subject. Due to the fact that you will be reporting the work of others, the literature review that you write will most likely include several in-text citations to the books and papers that you have read. It is typical practice to conclude the literature evaluation with one or more hypotheses for your own study in research that is of a more scientific nature. In many types of reports, the literature review is included into the introduction and may have a more straightforward name, such as “Background.”
8. Method(s) or Methodology or Research design
In reality, the definitions of these three terms—”method,” “methodology,” and “research design”—differ just a little bit from one another. For additional detail on this topic, check a work on research techniques. In contrast, you should explain to the reader in this part how you obtained the information that was utilized in the academic report (i.e. your methods). You may, for instance, explain an activity that you participated in or an event that you witnessed in a step-by-step fashion. In most cases, it is necessary for this description to be fairly specific. In most cases, you will also need to justify the techniques you used to acquire the data and explain why you chose to do so in the manner that you did. This justification could need a lot of specificity.
You could find it helpful to include some in-text references to published works on research methodologies to assist you in explaining the methodology you chose.
9. Results or Findings
It is at this point that you will deliver the findings of your investigation, often known as “what you found out.” Those results should not be the subject of any debate or examination. Tables and charts are frequently included in this section.
In the event that you have developed one or more hypotheses for your report, you need to specify in this part whether you can accept or reject those hypotheses.
10. Discussion of results or Analysis or Interpretation
Because it demonstrates what you think about the results, this section of the academic report is frequently considered to be the most essential element. It is expected that you will remark on your results during the conversation. This may also involve:
- Describing any patterns found in the results and offering possible explanations for them, maybe mentioning any anomalies (results that don’t ‘fit in with’ the rest of the findings).
- Providing an explanation for what you found (while referring to theory).
- Offering commentary on the extent to which your findings accord or differ with the existing body of research.
- Taking into consideration the correctness and dependability of your findings.
- Taking into consideration the repercussions that your findings may have, such as what they may signify for your clinical work.
- Engaging in a discussion on the potential future applications of more research in this field.
11. Conclusions
You should summarize the most important results from your academic report in the conclusion section. (Only imagine that you have to condense what you learned into just five or six phrases.) There should be no newly discovered information supplied. It is often beneficial to review the goal(s) and objectives stated in the introduction, and it is also possible to offer some commentary on the degree to which those goals and objectives have been accomplished.
12. Recommendations (Depends on Nature of the Report)
Recommendations are included in just few of the reports. But if your academic report is on a work-related topic or case study, and especially if the issue includes problem-solving or improving practice, it may very well be acceptable to give suggestions. This is especially true if the issue concerns improving practice. The study includes several recommendations for possible follow-up actions on the matter. In most cases, they will be recommendations that are the result of your study and that you believe would make a situation better.
13. References or Reference list or Bibliography
This is a list of the books and articles that you read for the report and that you utilized in the academic report. It is written in a very specific way. When you create a bibliography, you list all of the sources that you utilized, but when you create a reference list, you just mention the sources that you actually cited in your text.
14. Appendices
Appendices are supplemental sections that are often added at the very end of an academic report. They are used to contain additional information. This may include copies of observation forms or notes, tables of data, or excerpts (not photocopies) from huge papers that you have referred to. They might also be any other important information that you have discussed in your academic report and to which you would like your reader to be able to refer. You should include this information in your references section. Place each source in its own individual appendix; label them Appendix A [or 1], Appendix B [or 2], and so on.
